Diwan Software, multilingual software provider, has announced that it has been contracted by Openwave Systems to add multilingual, bi-directional text support to the OpenwaveTMobile Browser that is used in over 200 million phones worldwide, stated a press release. Diwan and Openwave will cooperate to establish extensions to existing standards like WAP to allow for complete support of right-to-left content.

This will enable the Openwave browser to display all right-to-left languages including Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. As part of this agreement, Diwan will license its text engine to Openwave for use in its version five and later mobile browsers. The Diwan text engine handles Unicode text, the full Unicode reordering model, and has been designed to work within the memory and speed constraints of a small device.

Diwan Software develops technology for multilingual computing. Throughout its 15 year history, Diwan was the main consultant to Apple Computer for the Arabic Macintosh and has gone on to produce a high end Desktop Publishing application that is the industry standard in the Middle East. Diwan announced the first ever Arabic WAP publishing system as well as one of the first Arabic typefaces designed especially for mobile devices. Diwan has offices in London and Amman and has recently opened an office in Dubai Internet City. — (menareport.com)